Friday, February 12, 2010

[pwyidsyf] Breaking up media monopolies

Mass media is becoming increasingly concentrated and conglomerated, restricting free speech.  However, if regulators should ever decide to do their job, these monopolies can be, at least in an initial pass, be broken up fairly easily.

Every "media outlet": television station, radio station, newspaper, (and maybe others: local cable providers, billboards?) must be independently owned.  More critically, these outlets may not enter into anti-competitive exclusivity agreements with content providers:  If you show this, you must show that, you can't show that, we'll give you a discounted package price if you agree to show this and that, etc.  Content providers may not engage in price discrimination between favored and disfavored outlets.  Maybe use the market to buy and sell the right to broadcast some content some week.

No comments :